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Destined: caUSE co-MOTION!

In the beginning it was really all about making home recordings and then overdubbing the drums.

It’s their spelling; their preferences of dual meaning. You can’t spell caUSE co-MOTION! without “use motion,” and in every aspect of this Brooklyn band’s music, that buried phrase comes forward. Use motion to cause a commotion. Snappy. And so very apt. There’s not too many songs in caUSE co-MOTION!’s catalog that don’t threaten to shake the tuning pegs out of their guitars. Chords ricochet triumphantly off of each other, the walls, the bodies in the room, and the owners of those bodies get to dancing.

Hopefully people who come to see us are coming to dance and party and have a great time as opposed to going to watch some band. We’re strong supporters of “more parties.”

Remember back to middle school. Watching that film in science class depicting the acceleration of water molecules when heat is applied. The way you thought of that, the catalyst for change, how it applied to you. The day your voice broke in class, or the day you noticed that girls got breasts all of a sudden. Anticipation of your life having meaning, substance. High school loomed. Perhaps feelings about some of your classmates, and not having a really defined idea of what they mean. Anxiety. Dancing around in your bedroom behind a closed door, and living in that moment where you weren’t under the scrutiny of other kids just as confused as you were. These are the feelings that the music of caUSE co-MOTION! elicit; the breaking of kinetic energy bonds, the painful reminder of how every year in between before 21 is that much more drastic of a change than the ones which follow. Thinking that somehow, science was colluding to make your life one giant ball of questions and fears and surprises and wonder in ways you couldn’t possibly understand.

The way we use influences: trying to steal favorite parts of songs and bands based on remembrances, realizing later they're not at all alike, and sticking with the remembrances.

To listen to caUSE co-MOTION!’s music is to bombard oneself with innocence; simple, rhyming lyrics (“say” and “today” leading on to “tomorrow”) sung in a reedy, talky octave; words that jut out amongst downright frantic pop music. Chords are hammered out with purpose; drums are beaten and rolled upon and cymbals crash standing up, Mo Tucker style; bass is in itself a lead instrument, where harmonies democratically counter a melody.

We’re not afraid of colors. Is reverb an aesthetic?

To followers of indie and DIY music, caUSE co-MOTION! is as familiar as how far you’ve gone back: to the relentless strum of the Wedding Present; to the edgy suburban caterwaul of innocence spearheaded by the Television Personalities, to the gigantic pop overthrow of the classic C86 compilation, the early Creation roster, pre-Loveless My Bloody Valentine; to well-groomed ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll a la Buddy Holly; to tear-streaked Spectorian walls of sound. Nothing twee about any of this, though. This is a band that champions an innocence which is not forced, having little if anything to do with Soft Charlies and fussy babies in argyle socks and Buster Brown pennyloafers.

We attract beautiful caring people who are comfortable enough with themselves to really let go. It’s a groovy scene with lots of bright colors.

caUSE-coMOTION! is a pop quartet featuring Arno on rhythm guitar and vocals, Liam on bass, Jock on drums, and Alex on guitar. They’ve been around since 2002 in a handful of lineups, represented by an earlier self-released single (credited to Arno Kleni! & caUSE co-MOTION!) and today by 2005’s This Just Won’t Last 7” EP on the What’s Your Rupture? label (placing them in sweet company alongside Swedish pop dynamos and soon-to-be-tourmates Love Is All, Black Dice side project Ninjas, and England’s Comet Gain and the Long Blondes). They’re working on a new EP at press time, and awaiting the release of a split single with Swell Maps drummer Jowe Head, all the while scoffing at interest from larger labels. They play regularly around NYC with all manner of bands who have little to do with them or each other sonically, but who all understand and appreciate their music. And they in kind.

I think we draw fewer beards than a lot of other bands but make up for it with disproportionately high numbers of sweaty redheads.

In a town filled with stencils of bands and careerists, here’s four guys doing it for themselves and their friends and for history. Promoting sweet times and smiles and togetherness should be on more bands’ agendas.